Salvator Mundi, or “Savior of the World” is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci that’s been lost for centuries. Art historians have confirmed that deeper in the painting, you can see the “miraculous softness” and the “delicate paint” of Leonardo.
It’s a painting of Christ blessing the globe (though it sorta looks like dude Mona Lisa from here) and has a somewhat shady history because there’s no record of ownership between the 17th and 19th centuries. The first owner was King Charles I of England, then Charles II, then nobody knows. Now its owned by a group of art dealers who brought it into the Metropolitan Museum of Art two years ago, to have it officially examined. A person close to the Metropolitan said:
“It had been heavily overpainted, which makes it look like a copy. It was a wreck, dark and gloomy. It had been cleaned many times in the past by people who didn’t know better. Once a restorer put artificial resin on it, which had turned grey and had to be removed painstakingly. When they took off the overpaint, what was revealed was the original paint. You saw incredibly delicate painting. All agree it was painted by Leonardo.”
Amazing, that one of history’s brightest geniuses still has work we’re discovering today. [Art News via Kottke]